Hero Paralyzed After Rescuing 4-Year-Old From Drowning

NBCNEWS.COM - When Michael Patterson spotted a 4-year-old drowning in a local
Rockmart, Ga., swimming hole, he didn't hesitate before jumping in to
save her. But Patterson's heroic dive, made on June 8, has landed him in
the hospital — still in critical condition and paralyzed from the waist
down from spine injuries and three broken bones in his neck.

"I
just did what I would hope anybody else would've done for me," he told
his mother, Vicki Jones, in his hospital room at Redmond Regional
Medical Center in nearby Rome, Ga.

Patterson and his 9-year-old
son, Cole, were spending an afternoon together along the Euharlee Creek,
as they've done for years, when the 43-year-old father heard a mother
screaming for help, Jones told TODAY.com. The creek's swift current was
carrying the woman's 4-year-old child away, according to the police
report.

A strong swimmer, Patterson jumped in and saved the girl, but the
water was apparently too shallow to cushion his dive. Bystanders found
him face down in the water moments after the rescue, and paramedics
rushed him to the hospital, where he fell into a coma. "He drowned," his
mother said.

It was touch and go at first, but Patterson is known in his family as a "fighter."

"I don't want to die, I want to live," Jones said her son mumbled to her from his hospital bed.

On
Tuesday, Patterson was taken off his respirator and started breathing
normally on his own. But by Wednesday evening, his health took a turn
for the worse when bacteria-filled creek water in his lungs triggered a
case of pneumonia.

"Mike had a very hard night and has some huge hurdles that we had hoped were behind us," a friend posted to a Facebook page
set up in his honor. "Mike is back on the ventilator, in a medically
induced coma, and has pneumonia in both lungs. His sweet mom is sitting
by his bed, holding his hand and praying for a miracle and that he is in
no pain right now."

Jones was never surprised her son risked his
life for another human — it's a habit of his. Just last month he and
another man pulled a truck driver to safety from the flames of his
crashed 18-wheeler.

"It scared me to death," Jones said. "I said, ‘Son, your heart is bigger
than your body, you helping like this is going to get you killed.'"

While Patterson has received much recognition for his heroic deeds from news outlets
and strangers alike, the timing of his hospital visit couldn't be more
difficult for him and his family. Patterson's new job doesn't provide
health insurance, so the family is struggling to scrape together funds
to get him transported to the Shepherd Center, an Atlanta nonprofit
hospital specializing in spinal cord rehabilitation.

Friends and family have received support and kind words from people around the globe on the Facebook page
they created for Patterson. Jones, whose own husband is also in the
hospital battling Stage IV cancer, broke into tears when she described
one man who offered to donate his own brand-new wheelchair to her son.

"I
was at that point where you get to thinking that you don't have any
blessings to count; I had lost my faith in people," she said. "I'm
thankful to everyone who has helped him. People all over the world have
responded unbelievably."

Doctors have told Jones that her son
could remain paralyzed from the waist down, with some movement in his
right arm, for the rest of his life. Patterson isn't quite aware of this
yet: After suffering from a concussion, he still hasn't been able to
digest the full extent of his paralysis. But Jones remains hopeful that
her active child will one day walk again.

"This is his worst
nightmare," she said. "But he has a heart of gold, and I do know with
all my heart that he's not going to give up."

CLE ELUM, Wash. - UPDATE: Washington State Department of Transportation says I-90 at Ellensburg is back open following a major crash Saturday morning. Westbound lanes were closed for several hours Saturday. Washington State Patrol urges drivers to use caution as conditions can change quickly.

CLE ELUM, Wash. - UPDATE: Washington State Department of Transportation says I-90 at Ellensburg is back open following a major crash Saturday morning. Westbound lanes were closed for several hours Saturday. Washington State Patrol urges drivers to use caution as conditions can change quickly.

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POST FALLS, Idaho - Billie Swanson has her hands full. Taking care of two boys could be a full-time job. “Kids grow in and out of stuff so quickly and it's a nice place to go and to have that option and some extra money in our pockets,” Swanson said. Swanson is taking about Trader Tots Consignment Store in Post Falls. It’s a place she’s gone to in the past to sell her kids old clothes and buy new ones. That is, until recently. “They

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KOOTENAI COUNTY, Idaho. - The Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office arrested 47-year-old Brett K. Anderson of Post Falls, ID Thursday after he was reported to have been hitting on-coming cars with a large poles sticking out of his own vehicle in the area of N. Meyer Rd. and Hayden Ave. When deputies arrived on scene, they discovered Anderson had stolen stole several 30-40’ long pieces of irrigation pipe from a nearby farm field and was

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